I want to try Xubuntu.
http://mirror.anl.gov/pub/ubuntu-iso...10.04/release/

I was reading something about ISO files or something, anyway, I read you can't just save it on the disk as a regular file, you have to do something.

But I lost that article so now I'm clueless.. again.

So is there something special I should do when burning this cd?

Download and install imageburn:
http://www.imgburn.com/
Once that is finished click on the icon of the iso you downloaded (xubuntu) and it should be opened with imageburn.
As far i know Nero is able to do it too, but i am not sure.

The .iso file is the raw bits to be burnt directly to the disc, not a file to be copied to a disc.

P.S. This is my 2000th post!

^
Well the download link here....
http://mirror.anl.gov/pub/ubuntu-iso...10.04/release/
... is one .iso file.

So I just burn that to a cd with that imageburn program, then throw the CD in my computer?

Is that it?

Yes.

You boot to the CD. Set bios if needed or select boot device to be cd.

Also use good quality cd's to start. Then burn at the slowest speeds always, always.

You can also consider other means of trying. I do like cd's for newbies but you may wish to try a live usb instead. See pendrivelinux.com for some how to's or liveusbcreator or unetbootin.

I always suggest that people with newer systems and enough ram consider a Virtual machine. I prefer VMplayer 3 but others are good choices. VM's, live cd's and live usb's tend to be safer for newbies.

Have fun!

Oh... um....

How important is that?

The only thing I have laying around is some blank "music" CD-R cds.

Almost any CD burning program will let you write a .iso to a CD in files/folders mode which is incorrect, or as an image which is correct. But the terminology varies between programs. So if you know how to use whatever CD burning software you already have, it can do the job. But Imgburn may be better and it is free and we can tell you how to use it.

For ImgBurn, look at the screenshot here showing the ImgBurn main window:
http://www.imgburn.com/index.php?act=screenshots
The two ways to write a .iso file to disk from that Window are

Correct: Write image file to disc

Incorrect: Write files/folders to disc.

I've never know the CD quality to matter and Imgburn defaults are fine for the speed.

After correctly burning the CD, you might need to use your BIOS's boot device menu to select the CD as the device to boot from. Or your BIOS might be set to boot from the CD whenever a bootable CD is present during booting.

http://www.chip.de/downloads/CDBurnerXP_13008371.html

This works also on my vista . free but some features don´t work . but to burn .iso and .img worked fine . all done well .

but my burner doesn´t burn 800MB CD and I think to 99% this program does´t either .

Try them--what do you have to lose?

im not really big on my linux knowledge specifically but as for burning an ISO to disc its pretty simple. first download the ISO from whichever source you choose, personally i use the ubuntu homepage. then once you have the ISO use your CD burner. there should be a selection for creating a data CD. or you can right click on the ISo and there should be an option that says "burn to disc"

and using a "music CD" should work fine. thats what i use for my linux CDs and ive never had a problem

Windows 7 automatically burns .iso files as images, not data files. I don't know about Vista.

And I have used cheap CD-Rs and burned them at max speed and they work fine.

Thanks to everyone's help I installed Xubuntu.

Well, atleast I think I did it right.

I completely wiped everything and let Xubuntu take over. Windows XP is gone forever on that system.

I still get annoying black screen messages before and after the operating system boots though.

I can't seem to get rid of the "Press N to boot from Network" message, and the computer will not cut itself off no matter what OS I'm using.

Xubuntu still is pretty slow, I mean it's useable unlike Windows XP.

But I just don't get why this computer is so slow.

I mean I know a 500MHz processor and 256mb RAM is crap. But I have a Hewlett Packard running Windows ME with about 120mb RAM and it's twice as fast.

Maybe this thing is just dying.

So I'm new at this whole Linux thing and I've had Xubuntu for less than an hour.

I have a really old computer and Xubuntu is still SLOW on that.

So what can I do to max out the performance? I don't really care about boot times, I need advice to speed this thing up while its running.

(I'm not buying more RAM, this is a junk computer)

What all can I turn off?

II really just use it for internet and light word processing.

I don't care if the Windows look alittle fugly or whatever. I need the thing to run quicker.